The Dawn of Heroes brings light to the battlefield with new champions, and traits!
Pengu and friends have been fighting the Black Mist for half a Set now. Or almost half a Set. Regardless, I’m sure their fight has been a real pane in the Skyglass. But it’s paid off, because the Dawn of Heroes is right around the corner, as long as Patch 11.15 is behind that same corner. For now, it’s time to go over the new Champions (yes, that includes Akshan) and Traits hitting the Convergence. If you're looking for info on the new mechanic, I hear the writer of that one is rather funny and good looking. For now, let's see who's hanging up their adventuring hats and who is gearing up to join your party in Reckoning: Dawn of Heroes. Onwards!
With the forces of Order shining a new light across the Convergence spelling big changes for our Mid-Set mechanic, our Champion rotation is smaller in scope than Fates: Festival of the Beasts. That being said, a beacon of light and call to adventure brings new Champions, and including the big Vertical Trait, Sentinel, joining our roster. To make room for all these heroics, we’re swapping out a few shady characters and minor traits.
With many dear frenemies departing we’re reloading the roster with new and mostly heroic Champions for Pengu and friends to drag in and out of Portals. In total, we’re adding 12 new champions and two new traits (excluding unique 5-cost traits).
Cannoneer (2/4/6) - Locked and loaded, every fifth shot, Cannonnear Champions deal a percent of that attack's damage in an explosion around the target as physical damage. Here’s who’s packing the heat:
We heard you missed Fortune, but we already have Miss Fortune at home, and just like Fortune in Fates, she’s going to Make It Rain. Run Cannoneer as a splash in your Sentinel comp (more below), or dive deeper down the barrel running 4 Cannoneer with frontline that can amplify your Miss Fortune through Forgotten (Hecarim, Thresh) and hit 3 Sentinel (Irelia, Pyke, Rakan). Most of these units are 2 and 3 costs, allowing you to focus on rerolling as opposed to the standard curve in the big vertical, Sentinel.
Sentinel (3/6/9) - At start of combat, the Sentinel with the highest Health gains a shield that grants Attack Speed each time it is applied. When the shield is destroyed or expires it will pass to the ally with the lowest percent Health. The shield Health and the Attack Speed get bigger with more Sentinels.
The Sentinels have mostly been pulled from the vanilla Runeterra canon, where with the help of Akshan, they’re poised to strike back against Viego and their own Black Mist dilemma. But on the Convergence, it's the Little Legends with all the power, and my Molediver doesn't care about the Sentinels beyond using them to take first! In fact, you can be sure to see me run Viego in my Sentinel comp to activate those sweet Skirmisher and Assassin bonuses. And just to add insult to injury for those Runeterran nerds (that’s me btw), I’ll slam a Sentinel Emblem on my Viego.
As a big vertical trait, the Sentinel comp gives carry options with Akshan and Lucian a bit late in the game, so keep an extra Cannoneer, or Skirmisher around to hold items for the two. And if you can make it to level 9, do try the anti-lore Viego addition.
Gwen: Tier 5 Inanimate, Mystic
Garen: Tier 5 Dawnbringer, Knight, Victorious
Akshan: Tier 5 Ranger, Sentinel
Akshan swings in to save the day in Runeterra with the ability to shoot ropes to swing around, camouflage indefinitely near walls, resurrect his pals, print gold, shoot bullets, and shred armor. Sheesh, the crazy things people will do just to make a few friends. With all these heroic attributes, Akshan is the perfect fit for Dawn of Heroes, where for the first time ever, TFT is announcing the new Champion just a few hours before those Summoner Rifters get their QWER fingers on him. So what am I doing with this honor… squandering it by taking a moment to ruin every Akshan pun. Alright, let’s swing into it… heroically.
And that just about covers it. We're excited to see what you make of all the new champions and mechanics. You'll start seeing everything on PBE July 7 and it will head to live servers with patch 11.15, early morning on July 21, with the Pass and Store Content activating later that day at 11 AM (PDT)!